14-year-old Rafael Morelos hanged himself on Jan. 29th after friends say he was subjected to bullying from classmates at Cashmere Middle School, where he had enrolled last fall.

“He told me he got shoved and punched in the face in P.E. in the locker room at Cashmere,” one friend said. Added another: “He was tired of people saying that his little brothers would follow in his footsteps and be gay, too.”

The taunting and bullying got so bad that friends say one bully created a fake Facebook page so that he or she could ridicule Rafael, who was openly gay.

Morelos’ mother, Malinda,told Fox Q13 she wasn’t aware of what her son was going through at school.

“He did not tell me he was being bullied. He had a dark side inside him that he never told me his feelings anymore,” she said. “I thought it was just him being a teenager, and I just didn’t know why.”